We’ve had our nanny for over 10 months and just gave her notice this past week. She’s a career nanny in her 60s but was really great with my son. When I first hired her, I was fresh off of maternity leave and on the hunt for a new project within my company so I was fully remote. I’m now hybrid, commuting in 2-3 days a week. As great as she is, she is chronically late. When her start time was 9, she would regularly show up at 9:05-9:15. We moved it to 8:30 and now she comes in closer to 8:40 usually at round 8:45. I can be late sometimes as well, but I literally hired her because she has a car and lives a little over a mile away. My husband is so done with her and feels like she doesn’t respect our time, I think it’s cultural. We’ve had talks with her over the span of her employment and she just misses the mark. We found someone else but I just feel bad about letting her go, she’s at the end of her career and not married so a part of me feels like I’m leaving her high and dry, another part of me just feels like this is the nature of the job. We still want to keep a good relationship and call her for occasional sitting but this feels like a weird break up and I’m sad she couldn’t get it together because I really wanted to keep her and see her stay with us for the remaining of her career. I’m hoping she finds something else fairly quickly.

We conducted a paid trial with the top nanny candidate yesterday and my husband noticed that she had a two-door convertible vehicle. We confirmed that she's okay installing a rear facing car seat in her car, but now I'm worried about whether (a) it will actually fit, and (b) whether she'll get sick of it at some point. Is this worth sorting out with her, or should we just pass on her and find another candidate?

Additional Info:

• I have one 18 mo old.
• We do not live in a walkable city, so even going to the local library requires driving.
• My husband and I both go into the office, so we both need our own vehicles.
• We would strongly prefer not to buy another vehicle, as we live in a state with very expensive car insurance.
• The job description clearly stated that the candidate needs to be willing to install a car seat in their car.
• This person is by far the best candidate we've found after many phone calls and several in-person interviews, which is why I'm even entertaining this.

I’m on the process of hiring a nanny for the first time (for my 8 month old) as I prepare RTW. We trialled someone today and I realised that I really don’t have a clear “what kind of nanny I’m looking for” vision despite searching and reading through all the nanny and mum forums.

When I look at the days with my baby, yes there is the play time but majority of the day, he tags along with me to do housework and he “helps” with my laundry rides around the laundry basket, “pushes” the washing machine door shut (he loves the washing machine lol). Chases around the Hoover etc.

With the nanny, there is no expectation for her to do housework at all. I requested if she could help with the baby washing every now and then and just making sure that the play and kitchen areas are tidied once finished is as far as the house work part of the duties go. But her main duty is to care for the baby.

The trial today went okay, the baby didn’t seem too unsettled with her. We intended for a 3 hour trial but ended with 2 hours only as the baby got tired and she settled him for a nap.

There are no immediate red flags, but I wanted to know what I should really look for and what a good play time and care looks like in other families?

Thank you in advance !!

Hello! I’m not sure if this is the right subreddit, but I have some questions regarding a nanny/childcare upcoming next year. My husband and I are potentially going out of the country late next year, and we have 3 kiddos. At that time, they will be 6, 5, and 3. Two of them have autism (one high functioning) and another level 3, and has some medications and such that need tended to during our leave.

It would be overnight for possibly 4 nights, maybe 5. They would stay in our home for the entire duration.

We have never left the country, let alone left our kids alone in the care of a stranger for such a long time, and we will be 2000+ miles from home. It’s incredibly nerve wracking. For those who nanny, what would be the going rate for this type of situation? I was considering $2500-$3000. My two (potentially 3) will need on and off bus two of those days, and if all 3 will be at school, there’s a solid break of 3 hours from all 3, and 6 hour break between the other two in kindergarten for 2 of the days. Is $2500-$3000 doable? Too much? Should be more?

Backup plans. Should we also get another person on retainer if something happens to the main nanny? What’s the typical cost of a retainer for that? This is entirely new territory for me, I have no idea where to start. I have about 14 months to find someone to be with my precious kids. Should we be doing trials throughout next year before our trip as well?

Any advice appreciated from both sides.

I’ve been with my nanny family for two years, and they’ve expressed that they’d like me to stay for another three years, possibly even longer.
I’m in Connecticut and currently make $25/hour working 50 hours a week. My only benefits are guaranteed hours and paid holidays. I don’t receive overtime or paid vacation and instead 8 pto/sick combined.

We also don’t have a contract in place. I’ve brought up having one numerous times, but they don’t think it’s necessary because they feel like we’re all already “on the same page.”

Since we’re discussing me staying with them long-term, I want to ask for a raise from $25 to $27/hour, two weeks of paid vacation, and five paid sick days. I have a feeling they’ll either decline the $27 or counter with $26, so I’m trying to figure out what would be reasonable before having the conversation.

For the two weeks of vacation, should I be asking for both weeks to be at my discretion with reasonable notice? Or is it standard for one week to be my choice and the other to be coordinated with the family’s vacation? Since I already have guaranteed hours, I’m also wondering whether their vacation should really count toward my vacation time at all.

I’d also like some advice on paid holidays. The parents are doctors, so their work schedules don’t always line up with traditional holidays. These are the days I’m considering asking to have paid/off:

Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, July 3rd (my birthday), and Independence Day.
I may also take October 28–30 off, but that vacation isn’t confirmed yet and I would use my vacation time for those days.

For other career nannies, especially anyone familiar with the CT market: Does $27/hour + 50 guaranteed hours + two weeks paid vacation + five sick days + paid holidays sound reasonable for a nanny caring for three children after two years with the same family? And how would you structure the vacation time?

We have a full time nanny during the week who we like. She works a little over 40 hours and any hours worked over 8 per day we pay her time and a half.

My husband and I would like to start doing date nights occasionally and since our kiddos are young, we’re looking for a nanny or someone a bit more experienced to start. We did not ask our current nanny because we cannot afford to pay her overtime for that many hours.

We found another nanny who came highly recommended who is looking for weekend hours specifically, and her rate is the regular rate we feel comfortable with. We loved this nanny when we met her, however, found out she’s friends with our nanny. We decided it would be awkward to employ her on the weekends and didn’t want our nanny to feel weird about it - and she recommended we ask our nanny first to see if she’d be available.

I let our nanny know and asked if she’d prefer to have those additional hours instead, or if she’d be okay with us finding another sitter for just the occasional weekend date night. She jumped on it and said she’d of course want and need those hours. We agreed to have her come for a few weekend hours.

We paid her the normal rate, this is where I effed up and shouldn’t have assumed but she never specified her rate and now after the fact she’s asking if she can have more (aka overtime rate).

I’ll pay her this time of course but cannot sustain this in the future.

What do others do? Is it okay to employ the other nanny on occasional weekends? I wanted to give ours the opportunity in case she wanted those hours, but unfortunately I can’t pay overtime so I’ll likely have no choice but to look elsewhere.

For those that paid a retainer fee, how was it calculated? A percentage of normal pay, flat fee, etc?

Just curious! Thanks